SilverZone Foundation · Social Science · Class 8
International Social Studies Olympiad (iSSO) Class 8: syllabus, dates and exam pattern (2026–27)
Everything you need in one place — the exact NCERT chapters this paper tests, all 3 exam dates, the registration window, and the full marking scheme. Updated for the 2026–27 session.
Last verified against SilverZone Foundation's own site on 9 September 2026.
2026–27 exam dates
Date 1
29 September 2026
Date 2
28 October 2026
Date 3
1 December 2026
SilverZone publishes these under the heading "Tentative Examination Schedule for the year 2026-27" — they are the body's own dates, but SilverZone has not marked them final, so treat them as indicative until your school confirms. The first date, 29 September 2026, is the earliest of any SilverZone paper our subjects touch: four weeks ahead of the English one and a fortnight ahead of maths.
Registration: SilverZone published one registration cutoff covering every paper it runs, iSSO included: 30 September 2026, on the same schedule it headed "Tentative Examination Schedule." SilverZone moved this date: its own exam-date endpoint returned 31 August 2026 on every read from 18 August to 1 September 2026 and 30 September 2026 from 2 September, with no announcement anywhere on its site. On this paper the new date creates a contradiction in SilverZone's own schedule, and we are not going to smooth it over: iSSO's first exam date is 29 September 2026 and the registration cutoff is 30 September 2026 — one day AFTER it. Both figures come from the body's own endpoint, re-read 9 September 2026 and unchanged. Treat 28 October and 1 December as the dates a school can realistically still enter for, and ask SilverZone directly if you want the 29 September sitting. Registration is through participating schools only: "Social Studies (iSSO)" is a subject checkbox on SilverZone's school registration form and there is no individual route. Ask your coordinator now, or write to info@silverzone.org to check whether a late registration is still possible.
The deadline is set by your school, not by you
Most parents find the exam date and assume they have until then. The registration window closes long before it, and for some papers it has already started closing. Here is how it actually works.
- Your school registers your child and your school picks which of the 2–3 dates the class sits. The family does not choose.
- For SOF papers, registrations must reach SOF exactly 30 days before that chosen date — and once the school has chosen, the date cannot be changed.
- Most bodies register through the school. Four do not have to: CREST (online, no published cutoff), Unified Council — directly for NSTSE itself at ₹350 against ₹150 through a school, and on three online sittings, NSTSE-Online, UIMO-Online and UIEO-Online, at ₹354 each including GST — Indian Talent Olympiad on its individual online route (its own later dates — Slot 1 closes 30 October), and Humming Bird (online, ₹150 a subject, no published cutoff — its two dates are picked as you register). CREST is the simplest of the four.
Closing next
Indian Talent Olympiad — Set A
Registration closes 10 September 2026 · all five subjects
SOF IMO (Maths)
If your school picks 23 October 2026, registration closes 23 September 2026 · Maths
SOF IEO (English)
If your school picks 27 October 2026, registration closes 27 September 2026 · English
SilverZone — every paper
Registration closes 30 September 2026 · all five subjects
The body publishes this date but has not marked it final — confirm with your school before treating it as fixed.
Or read the full calendar on the site — no sign-up
Every deadline in this box was checked against that exam body's own website on 5 September 2026. Bodies do move dates — we re-check every Monday.
Exam pattern
How the iSSO paper is structured
| Section | Questions | Marks per question | Section total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Theme A — India and the World: Land and the People | 6 | 2.5 | 15 |
| Theme B — Tapestry of the Past | 8 | 2.5 | 20 |
| Theme C — Our Cultural Heritage and Knowledge Traditions | 4 | 2.5 | 10 |
| Theme D — Governance and Democracy | 8 | 2.5 | 20 |
| Theme E — Economic Life Around Us | 4 | 2.5 | 10 |
| Scholar's Zone | 5 | 5 | 25 |
| Total | 35 questions | — | 100 marks · 40 minutes |
This is where the iSSO papers stop being one paper at three levels. At Classes 6 and 7 the five themes carry 15 marks each and nothing can be prioritised over anything else. At Class 8 that is gone: history and civics carry 20 marks each, culture and economics 10 each, and geography stays at 15. So a Class 8 child who splits revision evenly across the five themes is spending the same effort on a 10-mark section as on a 20-mark one. The second half of that is sharper still. Theme A is 6 questions — 15 marks, more than a seventh of the paper — and SilverZone names exactly one chapter under it, "Natural Resources and Their Use". Theme E is 4 questions on one chapter, "Factors of Production". Ten of the paper's 35 questions are drawn from two chapters of a fifteen-chapter book, which makes those two chapters worth knowing cold rather than reading once. The Scholar's Zone is unchanged at 5 questions and 25 marks with no topics published, and the clock is unchanged at 35 questions in 40 minutes, about 69 seconds a question. Two limits of what the body publishes, stated rather than filled in: iSSO runs for Classes 1 to 10 where its maths, science and English papers go to 12, and its iSSO pages carry no level structure at all, where the iOM, iOS and iOEL pages describe a Level 2 and iOEL a Level 3 — so nothing here says iSSO does or does not have one. Ask your coordinator.
Syllabus
Social Science syllabus mapped to NCERT Exploring Society: India and Beyond (Class 8, 2026-27)
Ch 1. Natural Resources and Their Use
Olympiad syllabus label: Theme A — India and the World: Land and the People. The only chapter SilverZone names under a 15-mark, 6-question theme
Ch 2. Reshaping India's Political Map
Olympiad syllabus label: Theme B — Tapestry of the Past
Ch 3. The Rise of the Marathas
Olympiad syllabus label: Theme B — Tapestry of the Past
Ch 4. The Colonial Era in India
Olympiad syllabus label: Theme B — Tapestry of the Past (SilverZone writes it "The Colonial Era of India")
Ch 5. Universal Franchise and India's Electoral System
Olympiad syllabus label: Theme D — Governance and Democracy
Ch 6. The Parliamentary System: Legislature and Executive
Olympiad syllabus label: Theme D — Governance and Democracy
Ch 7. Factors of Production
Olympiad syllabus label: Theme E — Economic Life Around Us. The only chapter SilverZone names under this theme
Ch 8. World Geography: Some Glimpses
Olympiad syllabus label: Not named on SilverZone's Class 8 iSSO list. Indian Talent Olympiad does carry world-regional geography at this class
Ch 9. India's Long Road to Independence
Olympiad syllabus label: Theme B — Tapestry of the Past, read onto SilverZone's own umbrella entry "Indian National Movement (Freedom Fighters, Major Rebellions and Movements, Independence and Partition)" rather than named as a chapter
Ch 10. A Journey Through Indian Architecture
Olympiad syllabus label: Theme C — Our Cultural Heritage and Knowledge Traditions, read onto the umbrella entry "Indian Heritage and Culture (Literature, Dance, Music, Arts, Monuments, UNESCO Sites)" — Monuments and UNESCO Sites
Ch 11. The Role of the Judiciary in Our Society
Olympiad syllabus label: Not named on SilverZone's Class 8 iSSO list, though its Theme D carries 20 marks. Indian Talent Olympiad lists the judiciary at this class
Ch 12. Citizenship: Rights and Duties
Olympiad syllabus label: Not named on SilverZone's Class 8 iSSO list
Ch 13. Dynamics of Population
Olympiad syllabus label: Not named on SilverZone's Class 8 iSSO list. Indian Talent Olympiad lists Population at this class
Ch 14. India's Urban Landscape
Olympiad syllabus label: Not named on SilverZone's Class 8 iSSO list
Ch 15. Cultural Currents: 13th to 17th Centuries
Olympiad syllabus label: Theme C — Our Cultural Heritage and Knowledge Traditions, read onto the umbrella entry "Indian Heritage and Culture" — Literature, Dance, Music and Arts
At Class 6 and Class 7, SilverZone's iSSO list is the child's book: fourteen chapters for fourteen, then twenty for twenty, under the book's own five themes. Class 8 is the class where that stops, and a parent who has used the Class 6 or Class 7 page should not carry the assumption across. SilverZone publishes nine entries for Class 8. Six are chapter titles of Exploring Society: India and Beyond verbatim; a seventh differs by one preposition. The remaining two are umbrellas SilverZone wrote itself — "Indian National Movement (Freedom Fighters, Major Rebellions and Movements, Independence and Partition)" and "Indian Heritage and Culture (Literature, Dance, Music, Arts, Monuments, UNESCO Sites)" — which read onto three more chapters between them. That leaves five chapters of the book that the list does not name at all: World Geography: Some Glimpses, The Role of the Judiciary in Our Society, Citizenship: Rights and Duties, Dynamics of Population, and India's Urban Landscape. Be careful how you use that. It is a fact about SilverZone's published list, not a promise by SilverZone that those chapters are off the paper: the Scholar's Zone is 25 marks with no topics published at any class, and a body that has not named a chapter has not excluded it. What it does mean is that the chapters the body did name are where the published weight sits, and two of them carry ten of the thirty-five questions on their own. Worth knowing if your child sits more than one social science paper: four of the five chapters SilverZone leaves unnamed are on Indian Talent Olympiad's own Class 8 list — world geography, the judiciary, citizenship and population — so the two papers are not interchangeable revision.
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Keep reading
Guides that answer the next question
Which olympiad should my Class 8 child take?
The Class 8 paper list is the same 25 papers offered at Class 6 and Class 7. What changes is that the bodies stop agreeing on what Class 8 means — one paper we mapped chapter by chapter is roughly half last year’s book. The routes, the dates and the syllabus catch, read off each body on 8 September 2026.
Which olympiad should my Class 6 child take?
Class 6 opens no doors that Class 7 and 8 do not — the paper list is identical at all three. What changes is that starting here costs least. The routes, the fees and the dates, read off each body on 7 September 2026.
Or see every 2026-27 exam date and registration cutoff in one table, or browse all the papers we cover.
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